We started IF with the notion that it was to be employee owned. We wanted to control our own destiny and employee ownership was viewed as the vehicle to accomplish this goal. Restricting the ownership of IF stock to active employees, however, meant that we cut ourselves off from traditional sources of venture capital, i.e. investors. Thus, we were undercapitalized from day one and we made up for this by underpaying ourselves and using guerilla tactics to make ends meet.

Fortunately, the City of Somerville, the Campaign for Human Development (CHD) of the U.S. Catholic Conference, the Local Enterprise Assistance Fund (LEAF) and the Somerville Community Corporation (SCC) all had programs to support efforts such as ours and we were able to win support in the form of a grant and no interest loan from CHD and loans from the City of Somerville, SCC and LEAF.

People who study employee ownership will tell you that ownership, by itself, will not enhance productivity. Ownership combined with real opportunity for participation in decision making builds companies which typically out perform their conventionally organized counterparts. Sharing the benefits and responsibilities of ownership creates incentives for all to improve all that we do.

Creating the opportunity to participate doesn't guarantee that people will. Getting people to participate doesn't necessarily mean that their participation will be well received. Creating an open environment encourages the best in people but it also affords the opportunity for less noble motives to be given a forum. The most important job in building an employee owned company is to craft a culture over time that brings out the best and which discourages dysfunctional behavior.

We know that we have captured much of the good. Each year we work better together. We are respectful of each other's views. There is an honest effort to reconcile disparate points of view. The 2002 Catalog is a good example of many people working together to create something very special. The development of our titanium frames has been a very rich experience for all of us.

Technically, we are a C form of corporation - the same as traditionally organized companies. We have extended ownership by issuing shares to more recent employees after they have achieved a threshold of service. It is our goal to grow the company to a size which will allow us to convert to an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) where the stock will be owned by a qualified pension plan and held in separate retirement accounts for each employee. We are about 2 years away from this goal.